The gaming smartphone, as far numbers go, is a small niche. And for the most part, everything from mid-rangers to flagships get the job done when it comes to running popular games without hiccups. What then is the draw of these gaming smartphones? Manufacturers such as Asus have seemingly banked on the fact that gaming centric smartphones, by their very nature, have astounding performance to show for thus luring in even the casual, occasional gamer.
Unlike in the past, Asus is now taking a different route with an entire line-up of gaming smartphones to target specific use cases. And that brings us neatly to the ROG Phone 5. Positioned as the entry spec device in the ROG Phone 5 line-up, it is far from being low on performance or features. The first thing that you’d notice is how the wild design aesthetic has now been toned down. The LED RGB logo has been replaced with a dot matrix one like on the other devices in the line-up. The phone feels hefty in the hand, clocking in at 238gm.
You wouldn’t mind the weight too much though considering the phone has a gorgeous 6.78-inch 144Hz Samsung-sourced FHD+ AMOLED display to show for it. It is easily among the best smartphone displays out there and gets features such as a 300Hz touch sampling rate, a super low latency of 24.3ms, HDR10+ support and more.
With the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, the ROG Phone 5 just blitzes through everything. Unlike other smartphones with similar processing power, the ROG Phone 5 doesn’t throttle performance even under sustained loads. The result is a phone that gets warmer but nothing that will dissuade you from using it though. The AirTriggers seem to have become significantly better and are now far more responsive. Armory Crate has been refined and now allows for more adjustability. The cameras have not been tinkered with and performance is on par with other gaming smartphones.
At its price, what differentiates the Asus ROG Phone 5 is that it offers a whole lot more than just bare-knuckled performance. You don’t even have to be a gaming enthusiast to appreciate it. It does well even when looked at purely as a media device, with its great display and audio along with the performance on hand, making it easy to recommend.
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